Lansing to EL light rail - is it viable?

edited October 2008 in Lansing
The more I think about it the more excited I get about having a light rail or streetcar system connecting downtown Lansing with downtown East Lansing. These two cities really compliment eachother so well and if they could be more integrated the results would be incredible. Lansing has the advantage with adults and young professionals and East Lansing has the advantage when it comes to young adults, higher education and disposable income.

In my mind the track could be reduced to 4.0 miles if you had one end at the proposed East Village site (Bogue and Grand River) in East Lansing and the other end located at the Convention Center in downtown Lansing with 7 stops in total (Convention Center, Sparrow Hospital, Eastside Lansing near The Green Door, Frandor, Brody Complex at Harrison Road, downtown EL near MAC/Abbot, and East Village).

Do you think it'd be successful as far as ridership levels? What about from a return on investment perspective?


  • I'm pretty sure it would be successful. And I would say that a light rail line (or similar type transit) between Downtown EL and Downtown Lansing is inevitable, it's just a matter of when. Although I would say it should start at the CATA station and do the Capitol/Lenewee/Grand loop then continue down Michigan. Where is the MSU transit center at? That would seem to be a logical turn around point, except I don't know if it's close enough to Grand River.
  • Given the relatively small population of the urban and metro area, it would have to be much more heavily subsidized than lines in larger cities, most likely. I'm a fan of light rail, but with my limited knowledge, albeit, I'd guess that we'd have to see quite a bit more ridership on Route 1 (and, it seems to be materializing) to justify a full-scale ligh rail line. I could see something like a touristy trolly line definitely working, right now. I'm more skeptical about the success of a more serious commuter line at this point in time.
  • I agree that the Grand River to Michigan Ave corridor holds the best potential for improved and enhanced CATA service, but I'm not sure the capital costs of building light rail infrastructure would be justified. Bus Rapid Transit or some variety of a streetcar would, I think, make more sense -- either would require significant;y less start up costs with the same possible increase in service/ridership levels.

    (Even an express bus during rush hours that made fewer stops between Meridian Mall and the Capitol would be a nice improvement over the short-term.)

    This topic has been coming up more and more in local circles. Any service improvements, however, will hit the back burner for who-knows-how-long if the CATA millage fails. Get out on November 4th and vote "yes".

    Once the millage is secured it is my understanding that CATA needs one of those infamous "earmarks" to pull together the planning funding to do a bona-fide feasibility study of the corridor.
  • MSU's transit center is located in the middle of campus near Shaw and Farm Lane. Later on if a route ever went through campus down Shaw Lane from Harrison to Hagadorn it could tie into the transit center pretty easily, but I think that it would be tough to do it initially with a connection off of Grand River.

    It's true that we are on the smaller end as far as population goes (2007 MSA estimate at 456,000 - Lansing city at 120,000/EL city at 50,000/MSU students at 45,000). I know it's not a perfect comparison, but if Boise Idaho with an MSA estimate of 550,000 and a city population of 200,000 can implement a modern streetcar system I think we could as well. FYI, their proposed system is about 3 miles and is expected to cost about $55 million.

    Does anyone know in general how feasibility studies are conducted? Is there a magic number that needs to be hit for vehicle traffic count or bus ridership numbers?
  • edited October 2008
    I am certainly no expert, but I believe the FTA website covers most of it. I don't think it's just about a magic number, but how you rate compared to other projects across the nation applying for the same pot of funding. But again, I have a limited understanding of the FTA process.
  • And Grand Rapids is also close to getting some sort of system, their metro size is closer to 750,000, but their ridership levels are significantly lower than CATA's. And as far as I know they don't have a specific route that sticks out among the rest as being very busy, like route 1 does here.
  • E. Lansing sounds like they're on board for light rail. That's a good's been nice hearing all the regional cooperation lately, with that things can really start happening with regional cooperation. Things like light rail will ONLY work with this kind of partnership.
  • edited March 2009
    Yep, this was brought up in the general thread, recently, but it's good to see the State News do a story on it, as well.
  • I didn't think this was worth its own thread at this point, so a rail thread I thought was best for now. They are looking into a high speed rail service between Lansing, Detroit and Ann Arbor. It would incorporate distribution systems for hydrogen gas and fiber optics. It's not mentioned here, but it seems an obvious next step would be Lansing to Grand Rapids. Not sure how this would impact Lansing's airport, but it's definitely good they're getting serive to NY and DC.
  • edited March 2009
    Yeah, the company is dubious (they tried to offer a mass transit system to Detroit based on the technology) and many call them bogus out-right, but it's good to see bi-partisan support for studying all of these new options. The idea of Lansing-to-Detroit high-speed rail has been around since Hollister, and I believe it even got beyond the study stage. That means that all someone has to do is come up with a viable plan and it could start being built rather soon.

    BTW, to link the articles, use the button/option second from the right.
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